Other highlights

The ambition, polish, scope and range of its first season has been a joy to see unfold.

Particular highlights were The Marriage of Figaro, Enda Walsh’s stunning reprise of Bartok’s rarely performed Bluebeard’s Castle, and Tom Creed’s witty and stylish take on Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman.

All rounded off with a staging of Aida in all its very-grand-opera-indeed pomp. Roll on next year.

One that got away

I was out of town when Grief Is the Thing With Feathers was the talk of it.

Perhaps I’ll catch it some day. As someone keen at any opportunity to encourage in my kids the same giddy glee I take in a good musical, I was disappointed not have brought them to Matilda.

Lowlight

Helen Boaden’s report on the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra painted a sad picture of neglect and decline, of a kind practically unique in Western

Europe: just 68 full-time players, compared with a historical 90 or so; just 40 players with the Concert Orchestra; no full-time principal conductors; and a dwindling number of performances – to almost none outside of Dublin.

It’s a disgraceful abdication of responsibility, a neglect of a key part of our cultural inheritance as a European country.

The orchestras need investment, vision and the power to think ambitiously.

We’ve seen what the National Opera has achieved from a tiny investment.